Latest Technology

Nvidia’s final RTX 40-series Super card offers a small performance bump but an intriguing price drop. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/T902sBw

It’s not Zuckerberg’s first time in front of Congress. | Photo by Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via Getty Images Today, the US Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony from five CEOs of major tech companies: Linda Yaccarino of X, Shou Zi Chew of TikTok, Evan Spiegel of Snap, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, and Jason Citron of Discord. The executives will answer questions on the topic of “Big Tech and the online child sexual exploitation crisis,” an ongoing issue for a Congress that’s introduced numerous child safety bills in recent years. The hearing has been months in the making and apparently involved a little strong-arming from Congress, which reportedly sent US Marshals to subpoena Yaccarino and Citron. It begins at 10AM ET and will likely last several hours as lawmakers seize their opportunity to yell at some of both parties’ favorite bêtes... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/8qViDkY

The Indiglo button on a modern Timex Weekender. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Long before the self-lit pixels of OLED phones illuminated our lives, there was a time many portable gadgets didn’t shine at all . Remember when the display of practically every Nintendo Game Boy was designed to be viewed by sunlight? Remember when it was tough to tell time with your average wristwatch after dark? But in 1992, Timex popularized a push-button technology that could bathe any small display in a soothing, sea-green glow. And even though the actual button was often bad, it literally changed the face of portable electronics. They called it Indiglo. As a ‘90s kid, I thought Indiglo was the coolest thing. It still kind of is! Electricity energizes a layer of phosphorescent material as thin as a human hair , invisibly suspended... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/v2nUlrA

The Apple Vision Pro is the best consumer headset anyone’s ever made — and that’s the problem. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/FREraMc

Skylight Calendar Max is a digital family calendar designed to blend into your home. | Image: Skylight Smart photo frame company Skylight is launching a new version of its Skylight Calendar, a smart family calendar. The Skylight Cal Max works identically to the current model but has a sleeker, updated design plus a whopping 27-inch screen. It’s available for preorder today starting at $599 and will ship in June, according to the company. The Cal Max almost doubles the size of the existing 15-inch Skylight Calendar, which is dedicated to showing multiple calendars in a familiar layout and syncing with online services to keep everything up to date. An enhanced 27-inch touchscreen display with a higher resolution (2560 x 1440 QHD compared to 1920 x 1080 HD), provides more space and better quality for easily seeing everyone’s schedules at a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/iI4zUSM

Yelp is joining the wealth of platforms expanding their use of AI, as it’s rolling out a new feature on iOS that rounds up and summarizes user reviews in a blurb that appears near the top of a company’s Yelp page. The new feature uses large language models (LLMs) to parse through user feedback to highlight “what the business is best known for based on first-hand reviews,” Yelp says. That may include a mention of a location’s atmosphere, popular dishes, amenities, and more. One example (as shown in the image at the top of this article) describes a restaurant as a “retro diner well known for its classic cheeseburgers and affordable prices.” GIF: Yelp Yelp is bringing more visual content to its homepage on iOS. It... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/A512ilM

An example of how product links currently appear in TikTok after the launch of TikTok Shop. | Image: TikTok TikTok Shop links could soon become a lot more common across the social media app. Bloomberg reports that the company is testing a new feature that automatically identifies products in the platform’s videos before offering a link to “Find similar items on TikTok Shop.” A spokesperson for the company was not immediately available to respond to The Verge’s request for comment, but it confirmed to Bloomberg that the feature is an early test. Business Insider previously spotted a test of the same feature last November , and we found videos containing footage of the “find similar items on TikTok Shop” button from September and October last year. TikTok previously confirmed that it was testing the feature with a small number of users in the US... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/xvTrfUY

Image: Zoom Zoom’s Vision Pro app will launch alongside Apple’s new headset on February 2nd and let wearers use its “persona” (a digital avatar based on their face scans) during video calls. Whoever they’re calling will see their facial expressions and hand movements as if they’re not wearing a headset, much like Apple’s FaceTime app for the Vision Pro . The upcoming Zoom app will also take advantage of the Vision Pro’s augmented reality capabilities, allowing it to blend in with users’ physical environments while surfacing as a floating window. These features will be available when the app launches with the headset on Friday, February 2nd. However, Zoom says it plans on bringing more features to the app later this spring, including something called... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Y3uoOea

One of iRobot’s Roombas in action. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Amazon’s deal to buy Roomba maker iRobot is off, the companies announced today , after iRobot said the deal has “no path to regulatory approval in the European Union.” iRobot is also announcing that it’s laying off around 350 employees, or around 31 percent of its workforce as part of a restructuring . It expects to notify the majority of affected employees by the end of March. As part of the announcement, iRobot chair and CEO Colin Angle, who co-founded the company in 1990, is stepping down. iRobot’s current executive vice president and chief legal officer, Glen Weinstein, will serve as interim CEO, and Andrew Miller, formerly lead independent director of the board, will become chair. iRobot says it hopes to return to profitability by... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/4ZxJePz

SLIM landed close to its target, but engine troubles during the descent saw the lander flipped upside-down and unable to properly recharge its solar batteries. | Image: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) has been resurrected, over a week after the probe ran out of electricity following its troubled lunar touchdown on January 20th, leaving it upside-down and its solar panels pointing in the wrong direction. On Monday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that communication with the SLIM spacecraft had been re-established, and operations to hunt for clues about the Moon’s origins had resumed. JAXA had predicted that a change in sunlight direction could allow the probe’s battery to be recharged from its awkwardly angled solar panels. It’s unclear how long this power will last — the agency previously said that SLIM was not designed to survive a lunar night, which will next... Continue reading… from The V

The Nomad Stand offers 15W of wireless iPhone fast charging for $100. | Image: Nomad Nomad’s Stand is the latest Qi2 charger to hit the market, offering up to 15W of wireless charging speed to Qi2-compatible phones like the iPhone 15. The accessory was announced in late December , but it’s now shipping in a choice of black or white for $100 from Nomad’s website . It’s $100 price point makes the Stand $10 cheaper than Nomad’s equivalent MagSafe model, the Stand One , and offers the same “up to 15W” charging speeds and magnetic attachment compatibility as Apple’s MagSafe (Apple helped develop the Qi2 charging standard). The bad news is that Nomad’s $100 asking price doesn’t include the required 20W power adapter — you just get a USB-C to USB-C cable. Image: Nomad Nomad’s Stand in black. Nomad’s... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/wUXIAWn

Arc Search browses the web for you, and then builds you the webpage you wanted. That’s the idea, anyway. | Image: The Browser Company / David Pierce A few minutes ago, I opened the new Arc Search app and typed, “What happened in the Chiefs game.” That game, the AFC Championship, had just wrapped up. Normally, I’d Google it, click on a few links, and read about the game that way. But in Arc Search, I typed the query and tapped the “Browse for me” button instead. Arc Search , the new iOS app from The Browser Company, which has been working on a browser called Arc for the last few years, went to work. It scoured the web — reading six pages, it told me, from Twitter to The Guardian to USA Today — and returned a bunch of information a few seconds later. I got the headline: Chiefs win. I got the final score, the key play, a “notable event” that also just said the Chiefs won, a note about... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/wZ3gJxU

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge The past two years have been a whirlwind of changes at Netflix — and it’s all to transform the company into a revenue-driving machine that outlives other streamers. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/7cNEUhw

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 23, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .) This week, I’ve been reading about the sudden rise in freight train heists and the strange state of Air Jordans , watching Jon Stewart’s Mark Twain Prize speeches all over again, wondering if I should buy an original Macintosh on eBay instead of continuing to pay my mortgage, scheming to get my hands on the “real” Star Wars lightsaber , tracking at-home workouts with Weller , and trying to replace doomscrolling on my phone with the Chess.com app . I also have for you a new show from the Silicon Valley creator,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Bm3TR5D

Nomad’s minimalist Base One Max 3-in-1 is on sale for $95. | Image: Nomad Fancy phone chargers are nice, but they’re often too expensive to justify the cost. Nomad’s Base One Max 3-in-1 is one of those rare unicorns that delivers a lot of value for your money, however, thus making it worth the splurge. After all, the device can simultaneously charge a MagSafe-compatible phone, your Apple Watch, and a pair of AirPods (or another Qi-compatible device) — that’s something not even Nomad’s forthcoming Qi2 charger can do. What’s even better is that Nomad is currently selling the hefty, MagSafe-certified charger in both black and silver for its Black Friday price of $95 ($55 off). Designed with metal and glass, Nomad’s minimalist slab will look slick on any desk or bedside table. It’s also powerful, delivering up to... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/25YJfqR

Still frame from a teaser reel of Lumiere clips | Image: Google Google’s new video generation AI model Lumiere uses a new diffusion model called Space-Time-U-Net, or STUNet, that figures out where things are in a video (space) and how they simultaneously move and change (time). Ars Technica reports this method lets Lumiere create the video in one process instead of putting smaller still frames together. Lumiere starts with creating a base frame from the prompt. Then, it uses the STUNet framework to begin approximating where objects within that frame will move to create more frames that flow into each other, creating the appearance of seamless motion. Lumiere also generates 80 frames compared to 25 frames from Stable Video Diffusion. Admittedly, I am more of a text reporter than a video person, but... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/X4EUZWB

Image: The Verge Many of us are hyperaware of the multitude of ways we can be tracked with modern technology, so you may feel like you don’t need to add another to the mix. But knowing the whereabouts of trusted friends and family can be useful a lot of the time, and it’s something you can do from your Android phone. It’s worth saying at the start that you stay in control of who can see you and when — and you can stop location sharing at any time if someone in your life goes from being trusted to distrusted. I’ve used this many times to figure out where to meet someone or to check when guests are going to arrive so I know exactly how much time I’ve got left to tidy up. It can be helpful for parents, too, to know their kids are safe and where they’re... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/asnR7j4

Beloved US comedian George Carlin (pictured) passed away in 2008 at the age of 72. His estate is now fighting to protect his legacy from AI mimics. | Photo by Mark Junge/Getty Images George Carlin’s estate has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Dudesy, the media company that used generative artificial intelligence to produce a fake hour-long comedy special that imitates the deceased star’s voice and comedic style. The complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court on Thursday alleges that Carlin’s copyrighted materials and likeness were used without permission or appropriate licenses, calling the special a “piece of computer-generated click-bait which detracts from the value of Carlin’s comedic works and harms his reputation.” The AI-generated special, titled George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead , was released on the Dudesy podcast’s YouTube channel on January 9th, where it remains live and has since racked up... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft is adding touch controls to its Xbox apps for iOS and Android devices. The software maker started testing the touch controls in beta versions of the Xbox mobile apps this week, allowing Xbox owners to remotely control their consoles and play games on phones and tablets without a Bluetooth controller. The touch controls are identical to the ones found on Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming service , providing an on-screen overlay to let you remotely navigate around the Xbox UI and open up games and stream them all from your own console without needing to use a controller. Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge The Xbox touch controls work on any game. The touch controls are surprisingly good in a pinch,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/l47hWpL

Words in a transcript will light up as the episode progresses. | Image: Apple Apple’s first-party Podcasts app is getting support for transcripts in the forthcoming iOS 17.4 update. The company says transcripts will be automatically generated by Apple’s software, will appear for English, French, German, and Spanish-language podcasts shortly after they’re uploaded, and will be viewable across “over 170 countries and regions.” The feature should make it far easier to find and skip to the point in a podcast you’re most interested in. Transcripts can be searched for specific words and phrases which can be tapped to go directly to the corresponding point in the episode. You can also read along with a transcript as an episode plays, and watch each word be highlighted as it’s said out loud. Per 9to5Mac , the feature is... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/o1eTYrF

An employee assembles a fuel cell system in the module final assembly at GM and Honda’s fuel cell joint venture in Brownstown, Michigan. | Image: Santa Fabio for General Motors General Motors and Honda announced that their joint venture company, FCSM, has begun production of hydrogen fuel cells that will eventually make their way into “various product applications.” Hydrogen fuel cells use compressed hydrogen as their fuel, releasing water vapor as its only emission. A number of automakers have recently seized on the technology for its advantages in the development of heavy-duty vehicles and mobile power generators — and as a way to further transition away from polluting gas-powered vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cells use compressed hydrogen as their fuel, releasing water vapor as its only emission FCSM, which stands for “Fuel Cell System Manufacturing,” was established in 2017 as a joint venture between GM and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/tZ0

A deep image from the Dark Energy Survey. | Image: DES Collaboration / NOIRLab / NSF / AU Dark energy, a force responsible for the expansion of the universe, is mostly unknown. But this month, researchers released a new survey meant to unpack its mysteries. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/whOLGXB

Teens using supervised accounts will need parental permission to revert the changes. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta is introducing changes to Instagram and Facebook Messenger that aim to better protect minors from unwanted contact online, placing greater restrictions on who can message teens while giving parents more control over their children’s security settings. Notably, the company announced that by default, teens under the age of 16 (or under 18 in some countries) will no longer be able to receive messages, or be added to group chats, by users they don’t follow or aren’t connected with on Instagram and Messenger. These new updates build upon a series of safeguards that Meta has introduced over the last year as it battles accusations that its algorithms helped turn Facebook and Instagram into a “ marketplace for predators in search of children .... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/z3BiDWo

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AMD is adding its own frame generation technology to any DirectX 11 or 12 game to boost frame rates for its Radeon RX 6000, RX 7000, and 700M GPUs. AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) is now available as part of the company’s latest Adrenalin GPU driver , which also includes support for a new AMD Video Upscaling technology. AMD says Fluid Motion Frames can boost fps by up to 97 percent in some DirectX 11 / 12 games at 1080p resolution, with the company’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2) enabled. The performance bump at 1440p is “up to 103 percent average” in select titles. AMD has tested this all on the company’s latest $329 RX 7600 XT GPU , which it claims is “ready to take on 1440p.” Much like Nvidia’s DLSS 3, Fluid Motion Frames “may... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/J79hcFI

Concept Tesla design images shown off in a recent corporate video. | Image: Tesla Tesla is eying a June 2025 kickoff for production of a new mass-market compact crossover, Reuters reports . The company has apparently invited suppliers to bid to work on the car, and is forecasting producing 10,000 vehicles weekly. Tesla did not respond to The Verge’s request for comment on Reuters’ report. News that production of the next-generation vehicle could be just a year and a half away comes as Tesla is facing intense competition in the electric vehicle market from BYD, a Chinese automaker that Reuters reports overtook Tesla to become the world’s top EV maker by sales in the fourth quarter of 2023. While BYD has grown rapidly off the back of its affordable cars, The Wall Street Journal notes that it’s moving into selling more... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Zlu0gUp

ULA’s rocket carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lunar Lander lifts off on January 8th. The lander didn’t make it to the Moon. | Photo by Chandan Khanna / AFP via Getty Images The failure of recent missions highlights the challenges of relying on private entities to spearhead the US’s lunar ambitions. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/I5sgCHJ

Nvidia’s second RTX 40-series Super card isn’t as impressive as its first. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/xMlJsRG

Photo by Michelle Farsi/Zuffa LLC Netflix has dabbled in live broadcasts over the last year or so, and now the company has announced a long-term deal with the WWE to broadcast its headline weekly show, Monday Night Raw, starting next year. This is the first time Monday Night Raw , which broadcasts live every week, is leaving traditional linear television, as it has been the No. 1 rated program on NBCUniversal’s USA Network, and it has tie-ins to NBCU’s streaming platform, Peacock . The deal is even more comprehensive outside of the US, where Netflix is also obtaining the rights to WWE shows like SmackDown and NXT , plus monthly premium live events like WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Royal Rumble. NBCUniversal’s Peacock service still has the rights locked up for those... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/cnyqig1

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Cutting, copying, and pasting are actions that are regularly performed in apps and between apps: getting an address from a message into a map, moving an image from an email to a document, or just transferring text from one end of a note to another. But while I’ve known how to cut, copy, and paste on a laptop or desktop computer for, well, forever, I wasn’t quite as sure at first how to do it on my Android phone. In fact, cutting, copying, sharing, or pasting on Android is pretty straightforward — no matter which app you’re in or what you’re trying to move around. Here’s how to do it. Note: I’ve tested these techniques on a Google Pixel 8 running Android 14 and a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 running Android 14 and One UI 6.0. Selecting,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/HCJWEbo

Image: Apple Apple is kicking off the week with the first trailer for its sci-fi series Constellation . The show stars Noomi Rapace as an astronaut who “returns to Earth after a disaster in space — only to discover that key pieces of her life seem to be missing.” In the trailer, this appears to manifest itself as a series of mysteries — a strange piano, an unknown voice on a tape recorder — along with plenty of unsettling hallucinations. The rest of the cast includes Jonathan Banks, James D’Arcy, Julian Looman, William Catlett, and Barbara Sukowa, and the series is being helmed by creator and writer Peter Harness ( Doctor Who ). Constellation premieres with three episodes on February 21st, and new episodes stream on Wednesdays after that. (Between this... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/OpF1Afy

Screen time is on my side, yes it is. | Image: Ford The 2024 Lincoln Nautilus will get the new super-sized screen, with other models to follow. And yes, it still supports CarPlay and Android Auto.  Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/IOoSVh7

Image: Meta EU users will be able to unlink their Instagram and Facebook accounts, as well as other Meta services ahead of the bloc’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA) coming into force in March, the company has announced . The changes will apply in the European Union, European Economic Area, and Switzerland, and notifications informing users of the change will appear in the coming weeks. The changes mean that EU users will be able to use many of Meta’s services without their information being shared between them. People will be able to use Facebook Messenger as a stand-alone service without a Facebook account, for example, and if they’ve previously linked their Facebook and Instagram accounts they’ll be able to unlink them. ( Meta’s help page notes that... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/h51Clfj

Image: Apple It won’t be a huge shocker if the bulk of the “over 1 million” apps that Apple says the Vision Pro will launch with are mostly just existing iPad or iPhone versions . But what is a little surprising is that some of Apple’s big first-party apps will be, too, including Podcasts, News, Calendar, and Reminders, according to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today. It seems like a bizarre choice for Apple’s big, shiny new platform. It could be fine, depending on how well the Vision Pro’s gaze-and-tap interface ports to the apps’ touch-first approach. After all, it’s not like the Reminders app needs mind-blowing immersive 3D effects. But part of the appeal of the platform for some folks will be the Vision Pro’s possibilities as a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/mYDyhz1

Illustration: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 22, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .) This week, I’ve been reading about the unbearable sameness of coffee shops and what happened to Twitch , testing out the Funnel iOS app for quick-capturing everything, marveling over Federico Viticci’s truly wild iPad setup , setting up my Flipboard all over again now that Artifact is dead , filling my cabinets thanks to this list of great new snacks , adding all the Emmy winners to my Sofa queue, and watching every behind-the-scenes Jon Bellion video that exists on the internet. I also have for you a huge new Samsung... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/BSk1MQU

Image: Netflix Co-directors Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares’ new action drama is a masterclass in using near-futuristic, sci-fi storytelling to illustrate harsh realities about our present. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/e97z25p

The Asus Zephyrus G14 and G16 are chunky and funky no more. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge [ Editor’s note: Monica Chin is The Verge ’s former senior laptop reviewer, currently taking a break from tech journalism. But some things are hard to quit.] Once upon a time, in the olden days of March 2020, a little company called Asus released a spritely whippersnapper of a gaming laptop called the ROG Zephyrus G14 . It weighed just over 3.5 pounds, and it was powered by a truly monstrous AMD processor, the likes of which had never been seen in a 14-inch form factor. I still remember reviewing that laptop, almost four years ago, like it was yesterday. I remember running the Red Dead Redemption 2 benchmark — the ultimate test at that time — over and over again, poring over the game settings, trying desperately to figure out what I’d... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/DqbMZFx

A view of the US Supreme Court on Thursday, January 4th, 2024, in Washington, DC.  | Photo by Drew Angerer / Getty Images The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week on a couple of cases that could completely upend the way federal agencies regulate just about anything in the US. At question is a legal doctrine called Chevron deference that allows federal agencies to interpret laws meant to protect consumers, public health, and the environment. Now, a conservative supermajority in the Supreme Court appears on the precipice of either overturning or limiting the scope of Chevron deference. The Verge spoke with legal experts about what’s going on and what the Supreme Court’s decisions on Chevron deference could ultimately mean for Americans. “The real question is how far they will go?” says Jody Freeman, director of the Environmental and Energy Law... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/t56qVs0

Illustration: The Verge Apple will let third-party mobile wallet and payment providers access the iPhone’s NFC capabilities in concessions meant to address a European Commission antitrust investigation, the regulator announced today . The Commission is now seeking feedback on the commitments, which would end Apple Pay and Apple Wallet’s exclusive access to the iPhone’s NFC payment features. It’s the latest development in the nearly four year-old investigation . The proposed commitments come a little over one and a half years after the Commission formally accused Apple of using its iOS policies to restrict competition in the mobile payments market in violation of EU law. “The Commission takes issue with the decision by Apple to prevent mobile wallets app... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/SnGhWdH

Users can disable the feature within their account settings, and restrict who can contact them when it’s enabled. | Illustration: The Verge X (formerly Twitter) is now rolling out its audio and video calling capabilities to Android users following their iOS launch last October . Users may need to update the app to see the feature, according to X developer Enrique Barragan , who also says that any user can receive calls, but only X Premium subscribers can place them. It’s unclear how long the rollout will take to reach all Android users, though we’ve confirmed that at least one of The Verge’s Android devices is showing the feature after the X app was updated. X Premium subscriptions start at $3 per month for the “Basic” tier , but it isn’t clear from X’s Help Centre which tier the outbound video and audio calling perk is locked behind. Image: X There are... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/bwhyNXE

Leia co-founder and CEO David Fattal, with his Red Hydrogen smartphone. A 200-person startup named after Star Wars ’ Princess Leia may have quietly cornered the market on glasses-free 2D to 3D screens — after clawing its way back from one of the biggest gadget flops of the past decade. Remember the Red Hydrogen, the 3D phone that crashed and burned so hard its founder decided it was time to retire ? Leia is the company that designed its “holographic” screen, and the company has been relatively quiet since that experience. Walking into its private hotel room suite at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, my expectations were not particularly high! So you can imagine my surprise to find five tables full of Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo and MSI products and prototypes, plus a brand-new 3D OLED phone — each featuring a eye-popping... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Y381MGd

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Rumors are swirling that Microsoft has been considering bringing some Xbox exclusives to rival PlayStation and Nintendo Switch platforms. Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush have both reportedly been under cross-platform consideration, and when you combine the rumors with recent comments from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Xbox CFO Tim Stuart, it’s clear Microsoft is weighing its Xbox strategy now that the Activision Blizzard deal is complete. At a Wells Fargo summit in late November, Stuart detailed what he described as “a bit of a change of strategy” for Microsoft Gaming, the division that houses Xbox and Microsoft’s overall gaming efforts. “Not announcing anything broadly here, but our mission is to bring our first-party experiences [and]... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/i6ymSHx

Images: Rabbit CES 2024 presentation ( YouTube ) With artificial intelligence being so prevalent across, well, just about everything these days, it’s no small feat for AI developers to make their products stand out among the deluge. Very few have managed to capture as much attention as Rabbit, the AI startup that’s managed to sell 40,000 units of its standalone $199 R1 gadget within eight days of launching the device at CES in January this year. The AI-powered Rabbit OS behind the Rabbit R1 is essentially a dedicated virtual assistant that’s designed to interact with your favorite apps like a kind of universal controller. The OS is built upon a “Large Action Model” trained to interact with common apps like Spotify and Uber to get things done; from sending messages, controlling music,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/vmq9jJt

Image: Nintendo For a while there, the Nintendo DS was the place to go for mystery games. Leading the way were the courtroom antics of the Ace Attorney series and the puzzle book detective stories in Professor Layton . But helping round out the space was a small studio called Cing that has since shut down, which released a pair of excellent mysteries for the DS with Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and Trace Memory (known outside of North America as Another Code ). They’ve since become cult classics, and now the latter is getting a second chance with a remastered edition for the Switch that keeps all the good parts (namely the story), while sprucing things up for modern players. The new release — called Another Code: Recollection — is actually a bundle of two... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2aPvICl

Instagram will be able to display HDR photographs taken with Samsung’s new Galaxy S24 phones, the two companies have announced. “Every photo and video you take, or view, will be shown in its full range of color and contrast, from the moment you snap the content, to the moment you post,” said Samsung’s VP of Intelligent Imaging, Dr. Hamid Sheikh, onstage at the S24 launch event. “In fact the Galaxy S24 series will be the first ever to have HDR enabled for photos on Instagram.” The app already supports HDR videos . HDR support was one of a handful of social media photography-focused features Samsung announced for its new phones, the Galaxy S24, S24 Plus , and S24 Ultra . The smartphone manufacturer also announced that Instagram, as well as... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/MY9UbLp

Image: Wing If drone delivery is going to go mainstream, it’s going to need bigger aircraft that can handle more stuff. Today, Alphabet’s Wing unveiled the first in a new lineup of larger drones with more payload capacity . Wing’s flagship drone is designed to handle payloads of up to 2.5 pounds. The new drone can handle up to five pounds without sacrificing range. The company says that it has enough battery power to complete 12 miles round trip while cruising at up to 65mph. “It’s always been our vision to implement a multimodal drone delivery model, in the same way that ground delivery uses different vehicle sizes for different orders,” Wing CEO Adam Woodworth said in a blog post. “It’s always been our vision to implement a multimodal drone... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/nbrCGgY

Samsung promoting Unpacked at The Sphere. | Image: Samsung It’s almost time for Samsung’s winter Unpacked event, where we’ll see the launch of the Galaxy S24 lineup and some splashy new AI features to go along with them. The event will cap off months of leaks of the new devices — plus some teases directly from Samsung itself. Just before Thanksgiving last year, Samsung announced a new mobile AI experience it’s calling Galaxy AI, which it said was scheduled to debut in early 2024. We should get the lowdown on Galaxy AI at this year’s event. The company is also rumored to be partnering with Google on some AI features, too. We’ve rounded up everything else you need to know about this year’s Unpacked below: When is Samsung Galaxy Unpacked? Samsung will hold Galaxy Unpacked on January 17th, 2024, at... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/lCFQ02d

Turtle Beach’s VelocityOne Race features an integrated display and remappable buttons for in-game customization. | Image: Turtle Beach Turtle Beach has unveiled its first wheel and pedal system designed for racing simulators, following the company’s debut into gaming simulation hardware with the VelocityOne Flight in 2021 . The new VelocityOne Race is a direct drive system (meaning it provides more “torque” for better immersion) designed for Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X / S consoles. It’s priced at $649.99, with preorders starting today ahead of its official launch on February 26th. For that, you’re getting adjustable aluminum pedals and a modular steering wheel control unit that’s equipped with six buttons, five latched toggle switches, three rotary dials, and two analog paddles for the clutch and handbrake. A “race management display” is also integrated into... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/W5wCxYv

These new Premiere Pro beta features aim to speed up audio editing tasks so users can focus on other creative projects. | Image: Adobe Adobe is introducing new AI-powered audio editing features to Premiere Pro that aim to remove some of the tedious legwork required to complete editing tasks — such as manually locating specific tools, or cleaning up poor-quality dialogue. New workflows will be available in the Premiere Pro public beta starting today, including interactive fade handles that enable users to quickly create custom audio transitions by dragging them directly across their main editing timeline. The Enhanced Speech beta feature will also become generally available to all Premiere Pro users in the coming weeks. Other updates to the Premiere Pro beta include AI-powered audio category tagging that automatically identifies and labels clips as dialogue, music, sound... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/JNSTdV9

Apple’s latest iPhone 15 and 15 Plus. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge For the first time ever, Apple beat out Samsung to ship the most smartphones in a year according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker . Although IDC cautions that its data is preliminary and subject to change, a second research agency, Canalys , also has Apple taking its top spot for all of 2023. IDC has Apple’s total mobile shipments at 234.6 million, versus 226.6 million for Samsung. Xiaomi, Oppo, and Transsion round out the top five with 145.9, 103.1 and 94.9 million smartphones shipped, respectively. IDC notes that the last time Samsung wasn’t on top of the annual board was 13 years ago in 2010. Back then Apple didn’t even feature in the top five. Instead it was Nokia in first place , Samsung in second, LG Electronics in... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/MrUTKtL

Illustration: The Verge Yesterday TikTok presented me with what appeared to be a deepfake of Timothee Chalamet sitting in Leonardo Dicaprio’s lap and yes, I did immediately think “if this stupid video is that good imagine how bad the election misinformation will be.” OpenAI has, by necessity, been thinking about the same thing and today updated its policies to begin to address the issue. The Wall Street Journal noted the new change in policy which were first published to OpenAI’s blog . ChatGPT, Dall-e, and other OpenAI tool users and makers are now forbidden from using OpenAI’s tools to impersonate candidates or local governments and users cannot use OpenAI’s tools for campaigns or lobbying either. Users are also not permitted to use OpenAI tools to discourage... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/WirSJwk

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The blood oxygen feature is about to disappear from new Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 devices. While Apple itself has not released a statement or responded to our request for comment, both Bloomberg and 9to5Mac are reporting that the feature will be going away and that US Customs and Border Protection has approved the measure, which would allow Apple to consider selling both products after their sale was banned last year. The Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 were both banned in the US late last year as the result of a patent dispute with medical device maker Masimo. The International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled that the blood oxygen sensors in both devices infringed on patents from Masimo. Apple pulled the Watch Series 9... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/xkUtSPN

Image: Microsoft Microsoft first launched its AI-powered Office features for businesses in November, but just two months later the company is already offering them to consumers. Copilot Pro is launching today as a $20 monthly subscription that provides access to AI-powered features inside Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint alongside priority access to the latest OpenAI models and the ability to build your own Copilot GPT. If you’re already a Microsoft 365 Personal or Home subscriber then the extra $20 per month (per person) subscription will immediately unlock Copilot in Office apps on Mac, Windows, and iPad. These features include the ability to generate entire PowerPoint slide decks from a chatbot-like prompt, and inline Copilot experiences... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/5pbE3GA

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple will combine a San Diego team of 121 employees with one in Austin, Texas, and any of the employees who elect not to move could be let go on April 26. That’s according to Bloomberg , which reported that an Apple spokesperson confirmed that the team, which listens to recordings of Siri interactions to make sure it responded appropriately, will “have the opportunity to continue their role with Apple in Austin.” The article reports that the staff was surprised by the relocation, which Apple had indicated would involve a move to another campus in San Diego by the end of January, rather than going to Texas. The company reportedly told employees they can apply for other jobs within the company, though some doubt they’re qualified for other... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/KrvcCae